As the White House on Monday backed off in a legal dispute with CNN over the press credentials of White House correspondent Jim Acosta, the White House announced new rules of behavior for reporters, which could result in the suspension of a reporter’s press pass for asking more than one question of the President or top administration officials. “We have created these rules with a degree of regret,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who directly blamed Acosta for the change, after the CNN reporter locked horns with President Trump in a post-election news conference earlier this month, refusing to give up the microphone while trying to get answers from the President about immigration policy. Here are the new rules as set out by the White House, which were contained in an email sent on Monday afternoon through the White House Pool: Sent: Monday, November 19, 2018 4:06 PM Subject: In-Town Pool Report #3- Acosta/CNN Letter From Press Secretary Sarah Sanders: This afternoon we have notified Jim Acosta and CNN that his hard pass has been restored. We have also notified him of certain rules that will govern White House press conferences going forward. They are listed here: A journalist called upon to ask a question will ask a single question and then will yield the floor to other journalists; At the discretion of the President or other White House official taking questions, a follow-up question or questions may be permitted; and where a follow up has been allowed and asked, the questioner will then yield the floor; “Yielding the floor” includes, when applicable, physically surrendering the microphone to White House staff for use by the next questioner; Failure to abide by any of rules (1)-(3) may result in suspension or revocation of the journalist’s hard pass. We have created these rules with a degree of regret. For years, members of the White House press corps have attended countless press events with the President and other officials without engaging in the behavior Mr. Acosta displayed at the November 7, 2018 press conference. We would have greatly preferred to continue hosting White House press conferences in reliance on a set of understood professional norms, and we believe the overwhelming majority of journalists covering the White House share that preference. But, given the position taken by CNN, we now feel obligated to replace previously shared practices with explicit rules. We are mindful that a more elaborate and comprehensive set of rules might need to be devised, including, for example, for journalist conduct in the open (non-press room) areas inside and outside the White House and for Air Force One. At this time however, we have decided not to frame such rules in the hope that professional journalistic norms will suffice to regulate conduct in those places. If unprofessional behavior occurs in those settings, or if a court should decide that explicit rules are required to regulate conduct there, we will be forced to reconsider this decision. The White House’s interaction with the press is, and generally should be, subject to a natural give-and-take. President Trump believes strongly in the First Amendment, and a free press and is the most accessible President in modern history. It would be a great loss for all if, instead of relying on the professionalism of White House journalists, we were compelled to devise a lengthy and detailed code of conduct for White House events.

The recent turbulence in the U.S. stock markets is spooking some older workers and retirees, a group that was hit particularly hard during the most recent financial crisis. There’s no indication, though, that the recent volatility has brought about large-scale overhauls in retirement planning. “There’s a lot of fear that if you have another event like 2008 and you retire the year before or the year after, you’re screwed. I’m not taking that risk,” says Mark Patterson, a recently retired patent attorney from Nashville, Tennessee. “There’s a huge fear of folks my age that they’re going to run out of money and they’re going to need to rely on the government for help.” By the time the market bottomed out during the financial crisis in 2009, an estimated $2.7 trillion had been wiped out of Americans’ retirement accounts, according to the Urban Institute. Older Americans, in particular, have had a tough time recovering their losses. The Pew Research Center estimates the net worth of the median Baby Boomer household in 2016 was still nearly 18 percent shy of where it sat in 2007.

Even the best of cooks can end up missing an ingredient on Thanksgiving morning. If you find yourself short on nutmeg or minus a few potatoes, there is a good chance a grocery store near you will be open on Thanksgiving for at least for part of the day. Here is a list of Thanksgiving Day openings, closings and store hours for national grocery store chains. Reminder: Some stores do not follow national opening/closing hours. Some state laws prohibit stores being open on a holiday. Be sure to check with your local stores for times. ALDI: All stores are closed on Thanksgiving. AJ's Fine Foods: Open 6 a.m. - 2 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Albertsons: Open from 6 a.m.-5 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Bashas': Open until 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving. BJ's Wholesale Club: BJ’s is closed Thanksgiving. Costco: All stores will be closed on Thanksgiving. Food Lion: Most stores will be open until 3 p.m. (depending on the store). Fresh Market: Open until 3 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Ingles: Open regular hours on Thanksgiving. Kroger: Stores are open regular hours on Thanksgiving. Publix: All stores and pharmacies will be closed on Thanksgiving; regular hours resume on Friday. Safeway: Most stores will be open from 6 a.m. until 6 p.m. Sam's Club: All stores are closed on Thanksgiving. Sprouts Farmers Market: Open 7 a.m. - 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Target: Stores open at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving and close at 1 a.m. Friday. Trader Joes: All stores closed on Thanksgiving. Walmart: Stores will be open on Thanksgiving. Wegmans: Most Wegmans locations will close at 4 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Whole Foods: Hours: 9 a.m.-2 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

After a post-election vote fight that showcased vote counting troubles in two south Florida counties, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) conceded defeat to Gov. Rick Scott (R) on Sunday, ensuring Republican gains in the Senate in the 2018 mid-term elections, and delivering a welcome piece of good post-election news for President Donald Trump and the GOP. “I just spoke with Senator Bill Nelson, who graciously conceded, and I thanked him for his years of public service,” said Scott in a statement. “My focus will not be on looking backward, but on doing exactly what I ran on,” Scott said. “Making Washington Work.” Florida elections officials on Sunday announced a final advantage for Scott of 10,033 votes – that was down from just under 15,000 in favor of Scott when the machine recount began, and lower than the nearly 12,500 edge for the GOP before the hand recount started on Friday. For Republicans, the hard fought win gives them a gain of two seats in the Senate for 2019, as the GOP will have a 53-47 edge, provided they can also win a special runoff election for Senate in Mississippi after Thanksgiving. The Scott victory was a rare piece of good news for Republicans since Election Day, as the GOP has lost a number of close House races in recent days. Democrats have now gained 37 seats in the House, with five GOP seats still undecided amid continued vote counting. Nelson becomes the fifth U.S. Senator to lose in November, joining three other Democrats – McCaskill in Missouri, Heitkamp in North Dakota, and Donnelly in Indiana – along with one Republican Senator, Heller in Nevada. While 5 Senators were tossed out by the voters in November, 27 House members – all Republicans – have been defeated. Several more could still lose in the five remaining House contests which are undecided. Hanging over the defeat for Nelson is what appears to have been a ballot design problem in one small part of Broward County, Florida, where thousands of voters did not cast a vote in the U.S. Senate race, which happened at a much higher rate than other areas in that county. The Florida Senate count is at Scott+10,033, right around the margin where the Broward County undervote/bad ballot design could have been decisive. We may never know https://t.co/Gg14C1heaV — Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 18, 2018 The ‘undervote’ problems in that area of Broward County were just part of a slew of post-election issues highlighted by the wrangling over the final tally in both the Florida Senate and Florida Governor’s race.

Behind the scenes – reporting at the U.S. Capitol

Posted: 3:00 am Monday, December 26th, 2016

By Jamie Dupree

Covering the Congress is about a lot more than just sitting up in the press gallery and watching the floor debates of the U.S. House and Senate, as many of the more accomplished reporters instead spend much of their time roaming the historic hallways and back corridors of the U.S. Capitol, in order to chase down lawmakers of both parties.

Join me as we pull back the curtain a little.

Next week marks thirty years since I started work as a reporter on Capitol Hill; the Capitol building itself is a great blend of a regular office, a tourist destination and living museum as well.

One thing that I try to do most days is stop for a minute before I go in the building, and snap a few photos from outside, like this one.

Once I’m inside, I have two small broadcast booths to work from in the Capitol; one on the House side, one on the Senate side.

Both booths are jammed with all sorts of TV monitors, radio broadcast equipment and history from the stories I’ve covered in Congress.

Up above my head right now as I type this in my Senate booth are reports from some of the biggest stories I have covered in the last 30 years – from the bottom up, there is Nine Eleven, Iran Contra, and President Clinton’s impeachment trial, many years later still filled with my colored sticky notes, sticking out of five fat volumes of evidence.

Also still up on my shelf, the infamous tape recorded conversations of Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp.

That’s just part of what’s in my broadcast booth in the Senate, which is about the size of a couple of phone booths:

Our work space on the Senate side of the Capitol is tucked up just under the roof – when there is a big thunderstorm in the summer, you can hear the rain pelting down from above.

There is nothing fancy about it, the biggest booths going to CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox and CNN; while others get smaller booths like mine.

Down below our feet is the Senate Radio-TV Gallery studio – this is where Senators can hold news conferences inside the Capitol.

While we can wait for lawmakers to show up at news conferences like that, it is much more fun to chase Senators in the hallways, and it makes at times for an interesting game of cat and mouse.

“How did you find me?” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said to me many years ago, when I tracked him down one day.

It’s not as easy as you might think.

On the Senate side of the Capitol, many of us wait for Senators just off the floor, out by the elevators that take Senators down to the tunnels going back to three different Senate office buildings.

Here is a group of reporters interviewing Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); this was from a few weeks ago, when McCain got aggravated with questions being fired at him about President-Elect Trump.

Just over from McCain a few minutes later was Sen. David Perdue (R-GA). If you look at the picture of him below, you can see in the back right of the picture that there is another group of reporters chasing after a Senator over there – all under the watchful eye of the bust of former Vice President Walter Mondale.

Sometimes a Senator will linger in the hallway and take our questions, other times we try to get in a few quick queries before the elevator door closes, like in this photo of Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), answering questions about repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Toomey was at a separate elevator over by what’s known as the Ohio Clock Corridor, a grand open area just off the Senate floor, which is often jammed with reporters on days when Senators hold their respective party lunches.

It’s an easy way to catch a Senator and try to get a quote – but as you can see, a lot of other people are around as well.

Down the hall, you can see a very bright light – those are the television lights where the leaders of each party regularly hold a weekly news conference with reporters.

For those not involved in such news conferences, we sometimes find them under the gaze of former Vice President Spiro Agnew; here is Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) talking to a group of us by the Agnew bust.

Sometimes a Senator does not want to chat on the second floor of the Capitol, so one of your backup spots is down in the basement, where the small subway trains run to and from the three Senate office buildings.

Below is a photo of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) talking to one reporter, while walking down a hallway lined with other journalists, just waiting for someone else to appear.

Often you see reporters running after a Senator as he or she goes down the escalator to the subway, like in this photo with Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

At the time, Corker’s name was still being floated for the job of Secretary of State; reporters quizzed him at length about what it was like to be interviewed for a job by President-Elect Trump.

What does it look like from their perspective? Here is a picture of reporters looking for something from Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ).

If a Senator just misses the one of the subway trains, sometimes they have to wait for about two minutes for the next one – and that’s when we move in quickly with questions.

Below, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) speaks to a few reporters; in the background, you can see Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) in a wheelchair. Kirk suffered a stroke in early 2012.

Over on the House side of the Capitol, unfortunately they have many more restrictions on where you can use a camera – and so I have no photos to offer of the ornate room known as the Speaker’s Lobby, where reporters are able to interview lawmakers when the House is in session.

But, thanks to C-SPAN and the Curator of the House, here is a wonderful video that takes you inside the Speaker’s Lobby.

Honestly, when I saw this video, my mouth dropped open. This is an area where cameras are not allowed. As she says, this is not a place where most people can go.

For male reporters to get into the Speaker’s Lobby, you must wear a jacket and tie. It is by far the best place to hang out in the Capitol in terms of being a reporter; you can send cards in to ask lawmakers to come off the floor for an interview, or just wait to see who walks through.

Below is a picture (from the Library of Congress) of the Speaker’s Lobby from the opposite side, which is the Democratic side of the Speaker’s Lobby; you can see the portrait of Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-MA) on the right.

Since we are not allowed to take photos on the second floor around the House chamber, we have to find other places to catch House members – and mainly that is down in the bowels of the Capitol, where Republicans and Democrats have their weekly caucus meetings.

The picture below is in a hallway outside the room where the House GOP meets, and is often lined with reporters on a Wednesday or Thursday morning, waiting for Republicans to talk about their strategy session.

In the middle there is Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), the top liaison in the House for the Trump Transition.

From the basement, we can now go up to the third floor and the House Radio TV Press Gallery, where I have a second broadcast booth.

If you thought my work space in the Senate was small, this is even tighter – basically, I’m working out of a window well. But it’s worth it.

From the outside, you can see that there is no room for me to have a chair – so there is just a stool – in this spot. It’s small.

In fact, things are so small my House booth, that I used velcro to attach a tape recorder and other gear to the wall, in order to give myself some extra room.

But as I mentioned, there is a payoff – and that is the view down the National Mall.

This is where I have been for the last eight inaugurations, and I will be there again on January 20, looking out my window at President Trump.

As on the Senate side, radio and TV reporters are crammed into a small area in our House work space, with all the major networks and others on top of each other. It is so small that all the doors simply slide open, rather than pull out or push in.

So, there’s a little look behind the curtain at how we do our jobs inside the U.S. Capitol. It’s a great place to work.